Moderation rules question

I don't see how anyone can expect the moderators to do anything when they don't even know what the rules are supposed to be.

Apparently because they've never been told. They see the same guidelines and TOS that we do, and yet they each have a different interpretation of same. And they see that it is considered reasonable for everyone to have a different intepretation. And for the interpretations and rules to vary, depending on what poster is in question.

And then one of them interprets a thread as possibly giving too much info on a rl person and closes it till it can be reviewed by Jeska, who reviews it and opens it again, and that resmod is totally raked over the coals for doing one of the few things they HAVE been clearly told to do.

It's a mess. The resmods should quit and force LL to either pay for official and professional forum mods or quit hosting them.

coco

That much has become abundantly clear to me as well.

Cat

ROFL... this is the funniest post I've read on the whole resmod issue, and that's saying a lot becuase there are some real gems of humor scattered amongst the thousands of posts regarding resmods in the last two weeks.

While I don't see anything philosophically wrong with LL entrusting a rotating pool of community memeber to move anything really heinous for "Linden Review", I do think giving ban powers could result in the abuse of power so many claim already exists.

Resmods don't have "authority" over anyone. They can just flag and move a thread to "Linden Review".

The Batley Townwomen's Guild recreates Altamont:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/460000/images/_463071_pearl_harbor.jpg

... and soapbox about it, getting the "last word" in while quoting TOS like some smug little favorite child.

the power to put things before those in power is a significant power.

So if he used the term "crusade", which brings up connotations of the Crusades where thousands died rather than be forcibly converted to Christianity, would that have been more acceptable?

I'm not sure why you're offended by his use of the term "jihad", unless you're a Muslim. Its certainly not violating any forum guidelines or the TOS.




Its the same power any of us have. Its the little button on the bottom left of each post.



You don't think you're taking the events of yesterday just a tad too personally?

Touché! The position is certainly not powerless. That is one reason why rotating resmods is important. Cory makes a good point about the AR system, although when a resmod flags something it certainly has more visibility.

She's not. She's just bored.

Just because the word 'crusade' is more familiar, we tend to be more habituated to it. It only really reveals its unpleasant heart when it is used as George Bush used it, in relation to his actions in the Middle East.

Who wants popcorn?

no, the little button isn't guaranteed to get jeska's attention...

what a resmod does is.

Actually, I thought it was the content of the post being reported that was the deciding factor of what Jeska paid attention to.

Selfstone is just highlighting the 1/2 assedness of the forum moderation.

I can dig that. My point is its an extra filter of people weeding out all the ridiculous ARs (and I'm sure there are tons) so Jeska can pay attention to the ones that are actually important.

I should have put important in quotes because, frankly, its the damn forums we're talking about.

Ohhh...I'd volunteer to help weed out the useless AR's. None would get through me.

I don't see a point of using the AR's in forums. It is the same thing as running to your mommy when someone kicks sand in your eye. I haven't had any abuse from anyone yet, and even if I do, I would not AR it. What is the point? If it ever got to where I was so upset that I would want to AR, I would know that it is time to take a vacation from the forums.

There's a good reason to have an AR system - LL needs to protect their own ass, and there needs to be a way to check people from claiming anything they want about anyone they want, no matter how untrue. Unfortunately, people abuse it, just like any other system, and as a result you get people that abuse report every percieved slight or cross-eyed look. I can only imagine what the signal-to-noise ratio is.

I agree somewhat on they need to protect thier own butts and to keep people from saying whatever crap they want about others. But the other forums I am a member of have more moderators and they take care of the problems AS SOON as they arise.

That would be the biggest problem here I guess. Not enough real forum mods with actual power. Just resmods. The punishments here are questionable at times also. The whole forum system here needs to be redone.

And then maybe there would be no need for forum AR's.

It would be hilarious if we could see the AR's people make, without identifying info of course. I would love to know what gets people's panties in a twist here.

the evidence for that is very contradictory.

also, if the ar button were sufficient in addition to the post content were sufficient...
what are the resmods for?

the power to tell jeska which ars are "important" is not an insignificant power.

Yeah, I follow you completely Creami. If I had redone the forums, I would have hired Jeska a full-time assistant. Just those two, they're employees of LL, if you don't like their rulings, then too bad.

The resmod thing I think was done with an eye to giving residents more power in their world, which is kinda the whole idea behind SL anyway. And I feel really bad for the first wave of resmods because they got the brunt of every conspiracy-theorist, every nutjob with a hardon against authority, every person that speaks first and bothers to learn what they're talking about later.

Especially in here, where some display the attitude that the SL forums were promised to be the ultimate free-speech haven on one hand and a happy cozy place where no one would ever be offended on the other. Its neither, its a privledge allotted to us by LL to even have forums at all, and its really not that hard to go through your life without getting a forum warning. Its not like LL doesn't have better things to worry about and put resources towards than the forums.

I haven't seen any thread left open indefinately that I would think should have been closed, I haven't seen any post left open indefinately that I would think should have been edited.

The resmods are there to filter out the "OMG someone offended me personally" ARs, or the ten million repeat ARs of a post that actually violates the TOS. There's at least 5 resmods for General - if your AR has any validity whatsoever, chances are one of the five people will recognize that. I don't see the point of wasting Jeska's time plowing through all the vanity ARs or the repeat ARs.



Actually, I think it was probably the other way around. This is Jeska's land, we just post here. Where does it say that each AR needs to go directly to the head honcho herself? If your AR is warrented, you don't think that one of the five resmods will recognize it and pass it on?

In the end, there's a very very small number of instances where ARs are warranted, the posts are in violation of the TOS, and Jeska needs to clamp down right quick. Those, I would say, could be considered "important" ones. Someone looked at you funny? Not so important.

And herein we have the question I have been trying to get answered which has been nothing but DANCED AROUND.

Does a Linden look at the contents of every single AR or not?

When the resmod system was first announced, it said something on the order of, "All AR's will be reviewed by Lindens, at least for now."

Close followers of the whole resmod issue will recall that I raised the alarm at that point that the resmods would have too much power, based on the "at least for now" portion of that sentence. (Paraphrased - I'll check later to see what the exact words were.)

At that time, others told me I had no reason whatsoever to think that, or to make anything out of the "at least for now" part, or think those words could possibly mean anything at all.

I'm getting the idea that the Lindens saved time by never looking at all the AR's in the first place, or not looking further at the posts they referred to. Or maybe skipped over those from "a certain few." (After all, Satchmo has gotten the idea from somewhere that it's okay to ignore "a certain few."

And I'm getting the strong impression that now we have moved out of the "at least for now" phase and more into the phase where the resmods serve, as Cory put it, "as a filter," so the Lindens can "pay attention to the ones that are actually important." The Lindens probably still have access to all the AR's, but can now rely on their chosen resmods to decide what's important enough to actually look at, which saves them time.

If so, combine this with what Satchmo said a few days ago: That AR's from "a certain few," are discounted, and "what is considered generally acceptable by most" is the guideline, rather than whether something is against the rules or not.

It that is true, that actually DOES come down to "rule by community," but in a very warped sense. The resmods have the go-ahead to ignore anyone they want to, regardless of what the rules say, and the Lindens don't have to bother with anything that doesn't bother the resmods.

That is rule by popularity. perceived general consensus, and personal favor. That is mob rule rather than rule by law. Probably we have always had that, but now we have resident moderators involved in it, too.

This approach not only explains why some people get away with telling others to go fuck themselves, etc., it's also the most outrageous and corrupt system I have ever personally had dealings with.

It is a farce. And the situation is only going to get worse now that we have Linden-picked resmods making decisions based not on the TOS, but on what does or doesn't bother them, or bother enough other people, or bother enough of the "right kind" of other people.

coco

This is, in essence, what I have been trying to point out. The "power" of the RM is to NOT bring something to the attention of LL, not the ability to punish actual TOS-breakers.

What proof do you have that either the resmods or Jeska are NOT making decisions based on the TOS? Telling someone to go fuck themselves is insultive and not conducive to civil discussion, sure, but I've seen other comments equally as dismissive that get around foul language. And at the most, Jeska or now a resmod pops in and tells people to keep it civil. If people derail a thread with constant back and forth, it gets closed because some people can't stop making a situation all about themselves. Sad, but not TOS-shattering.

How is this system more corrupt than, say jury duty? Twelve shmoes from your community that get to decide if you broke the law based on the evidence at hand. And you don't get to pick the shmoes, the lawyers do.